Product Description

London, 1901: Shopkeepers gather at the world-famous Portobello Market to set up their stands in the most lucrative places. Build your booths in the most profitable districts to draw in the wealthiest customers, and snatch the best lanes of your opponents. The Bobby determines where stands can be built, but with a little effort you can put their Bobby where you want it to be!

Product Reviews

I usually like the games from Playroom Entertainment, although I
still tend to think of them as a children's game company - due to
their excellent Bright Ideas line. However, Portobello Market
(Playroom Entertainment, 2007 - Thomas Odenhoven) really surprised me.
As we initially set it up and went over the rules, I expected
something along the lines of Ticket to Ride (no real connection - the
games only looked similar). What I wasn't expecting was a decent
medium-weight game that only takes about thirty minutes to play! The
co-production with Schmidt Spiele helped, but it's still an excellent
addition to the Playroom line.
Now this may be too quick for some people - and indeed some complain
about the short time frame. But if, going into the game, you know
that it will end quickly, then every play counts. There's nothing
really new in Portobello Market - and that includes the pasted-on
theme - but it produces a very satisfying play. There is little
randomness, simple scoring, and some tough decisions on when exactly
to score that likely will win or lose a player the game. There is a
decent amount of interactivity with other players, and the components
are superb. A great game to fit into thirty minutes!
The board is made up of various roads (lanes) which have from two to
six spots on which to place market stalls (each stall has a value of
'1" to "3"). The lanes connect various squares on the board and are
set up so that they are arranged in groups of three. These groups form
a district, and some lanes are part of two districts. Each player
takes a certain amount of market stalls of their color, depending on
the number of players, three action tokens (2,3, and 4), and a small
reference board. A bag is filled with ten customers - five gray
citizens, five pink aristocrats; while an eleventh customer, the black
baron, is placed near the board. A stack of neutral tokens is placed
near the board, with the "3" tokens on top, then "2", then "1" tokens.
Players put a cube on the scoring track, and one player is chosen to
go first. This player places a "Bobby" piece on any district and
takes the first turn.
On a player's turn, they may use any of their action tokens, taking
the amount of actions shown on it. They then flip it over and cannot
use it until they've used all three action tokens. A player may use
their actions to do two different things on their turn.

They may place a random customer drawn from the bag on one of the
empty squares on the board. Once the last customer is placed, the
black baron is placed on the remaining square, and this action is no
longer available.

They may place a market stall on one of the spaces in a lane that is
in the district where the Bobby is present. The first stall must be
placed at one of the two ends of the lanes; all following ones must be
placed next to the preceding one.

No matter what they do, the player has the option of moving the Bobby
for no action points. They may move the Bobby as far as they want,
but for every lane that the Bobby crosses, they must pay a victory
point. If another player has the majority of stalls in that lane, the
victory point paid goes to that player; if it's a tie between two
other players, one victory point must be paid to each. On the
flipside, if the moving player has the majority of the stalls in a
lane, they may cross it for free.
When every space in a lane is filled, AND there is a customer at both
ends; then the lane is scored. Depending on the citizens at the ends
of the lane, a modifier is multiplied by the points on each market
stall, and the players receive points accordingly. (For example, if
there are two citizens at the end of the lane, the modifier is "x1";
but if there is a baron at one end and an aristocrat at another, the
modifier is "x4".
A player can forgo their entire turn to "score" a district. To do
this, they must sacrifice their "2" or "4" action token and place that
token in a district, which does not already have a token. The player
(and only that player) scores all of their market stalls in the three
lanes in that district, which is multiplied by the action token
they've placed. They then take the top action tile in the neutral
pile to replace the tile they've used.
The game ends after one player has placed their last Market Stall.
At this point the round is finished, but unfinished lanes are not
scored - EXCEPT those that contain the black baron. After these lanes
have been scored, the player with the most points is declared the winner.
Some comments on the game...

Components: As with most Playroom games, this one has very high
production values. The wooden stalls are very easy to grasp and play,
and the customers are tall wooden people (like basketball-playing
meeples). The tiles are thick and are faded out on one side, so that
players know when they've used them. The board is a top down view of
the town with terrific artwork (no surprise that it's done by the
greatest board game artist - Michael Menzel). Everything fits inside
a quality medium-sized box with more, good artwork. As I said in my
introduction, the game looks slightly like Ticket to Ride, with the
different colored markets spreading from square to square, but that
illusion will be broken once players start up the game.

Rules: The rules are printed on four pages, with full color
illustrations and examples. The game itself is very simple. The only
parts that might be tricky to new players are the movement of the
Bobby and the playing of a tile to score a district. In every game
I've played, people plan their move out, often forgetting that they
have to move the Bobby adjacent to the lane they are going to place
their stalls on. Still, though, this is an easy-enough game to
introduce to practically anyone; and even though the game plays
quickly, players will understand it even faster.

Customers: There is a variant rule in which all the customers are
placed in a random line, so that players can see the customers that
they are going to place; but I like the random feel of pulling them
from the bag. Customers are incredibly important, and it's not a
surprise to see all eleven of them on the board quickly. While
putting down stalls is key to getting points, it's a powerful thing to
decide which lanes get which modifiers. Since the aristocrats cause
the majority of the higher modifiers (two of them give "x3"), placing
them is key; but it's just as important to stick citizens at the end
of lanes dominated by opponents.

Strategy: The initial thing players will see is that they should
place their stalls on spots with a lot of points (i.e. "3" or "2"
spaces). At the same time, the game goes a little deeper than that.
Sure, there are the modifiers, which really can change up the game to
a degree; but the real crux of the game is when a player plays their
action tokens to score a district. I would go as far as to say that's
the most important decision a player makes the entire game. There
certainly is an incentive to do it early, as getting a "1" action
token near the end can slow a player's game down to a crawl. And even
worse, it's dreadfully annoying when another player takes a district
you want to score. This also increases the player interaction of a
game. If players allow another player to dominate a district with
their stalls, then they will literally score enough points to
practically win them the game if they get that scoring token down.
Because of this, monopolies on streets will be rare once players know
what they are doing, as players will place stalls simply to keep those
scoring tokens from being too powerful. Again, for this reason I
think the game should be played twice in a row for new players, as
they (even if they've been warned) will likely ignore the potency of
the scoring tokens - to their dismay. A second game will see them
coming back, most certainly wiser.

Time and Players: I can certainly recommend two games in a row
if only because the game plays so quickly. The box says thirty-five
minutes, and that's likely longer than the game actually takes -
especially with two players. Interestingly enough, the game is pretty
good with two players, but it seems to really shine with four, if only
because there is more interaction and competition for market stalls.
The game, because it is so quick, will initially seem like a light,
simple game; but there's more to it, and it almost has a medium-weight
feel.

Fun Factor: The game could essentially be boiled down to some
math computations when placing stalls and scoring tiles, and moving
the Bobby. The artwork helps bring the theme across a bit; but since
everything moves so fast (there's almost no downtime, and every move
other players make certainly effects you!), the game has a high
interest factor. It's fun to set up a good scoring district for
yourself, or managing to place a stall in a lane with the Bobby. Most
of the fun comes from a quickly rising tension about when players will
place their scoring tokens. The game can come to a screeching halt,
so players have to be quick without jumping the gun.

Portobello Market is a game that, if it took over an hour, would
become repetitive, boring, and one that quickly would land on my
"outgoing" pile of games. But because it's quick, it has a rapid
tension level and is simple to teach others - I really enjoy it. It's
a good start to a game night, because it has some real meat despite
its short length; and although I may be getting tired of the "market"
theme, it works well enough here. I would recommend trying this game
out - from a company that has marketed mostly children's games, this
one is for everyone!
Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"www.thedicetower.com

Portobello Market was one of those games that I'd seen photos
of and never gave it much thought. I'd always assumed that it
was just another railroad game and not being a big fan of that
genre, I didn't bother to look any further. It wasn't until I'd seen
the game listed in the "Games Magazine 2008 Best Games"
issue, that I actually read what the game was all about.
Ironically, I was later to read online, that the game was originally
designed as a Railroad Game under the title of "East India Railway" when it was in it's prototype stage. Seems as if the
publisher felt there were too many railroad games out there and
decided to change the name of the game and the look of the
board. So maybe I like railroad games after all.

Portobello Market is about setting up Market Stands on the
Streets of London and positioning customers in an effort to
score the most points by the end of the game. Each player starts
out with a certain number of Wooden Market Stands, depending
on the number of players. These are placed in the alleyways on
the board, which will be 2-6 spaces long and valued between 1-3
points. Each alleyway, is grouped into a sort of triangular
pattern with 2 other alleyways and each such grouping is
considered a District. In order to place a Market Stand, The
Bobby piece must be located in the same district that's adjacent
to one of the 3 alleys where you'd like to place your stand.
When placing the first Market Stand, in an alley, it may be placed
at either end of the alley but all subsequent placements must be
placed next to a previously placed stand. Each player gets a
cardboard market stand, which they place at the side of the
board which has illustrations on them, showing the different
combinations of two customers and the amount they are worth
when scoring any completed alleys. These comes in handy until
you can commit the information to memory. Below these, you
place three actions tokens in your color, which have the values,
2, 3 and 4 on them. On each turn, you choose one of the face up
Action Tokens and place it face down. The number you turned
over, will be the number of actions your allowed on your turn.
Once all Action Tokens are face down, you turn them face up
again. For the most part, you have only two actions to choose
from. Either place a Market Stand on an empty alley space or
pick a customer at random from a bag and place it on one of the
11 squares on the board, which are reserved for a single
customer. You can also move the Bobby across an alley to a
neighboring district anytime during your turn and this doesn't
count as an action. When moving the Bobby across an alley
that's empty, you'll lose 1 point on the scoring track. If you have
the majority of Market Stands on the alley you cross, the
movement is free. If it's your opponent that has a majority of
Market Stands , you lose 1 point and they gain 1 point. There
are 3 types of Customers, represented by little Wooden
Meeples:
(1) Black, (5) Pink and (5) gray that will affect the value of all
Market Stands on an alley, assuming all Market Stands have
been placed there and that a Customer stands at both ends of
the completed alley. Each Market Stand will be valued between
1-3 points (depending on the value their sit on) and the
Customers act as a multiplying factor. So let's say the total value
of yours stands are worth 4 points, so you multiply 4 by either
1,2,3, or 4 as follows:

So in the example above, with a pink and pink customer at the
ends of a completed market, you'd score 12 points (the value of
your stands (4) times 3 as listed above.

Note that the Black Customer piece isn't included in the bag you'll
be drawing random customers from but is placed in the last
available space, if and when all other customers have been
played.

There's one last way of scoring points, but you're only allowed to
do it up to two times during the game and it's the only action you
can take during your turn when using it:

You can place either your 2 or 4 Action Token into any District
that hasn't already been scored using this method. Your score
becomes the total number of your Market Stands in any of the
three alleyways of the District (not the value of them this time)
times either 2 or 4 depending on which Action Token used. You
draw the next Neutral Action Token from the stack set-up at the
side of the board, to replace the one used. The stack of Neutral
Tokens are always set-up from top to bottom as follows:
3,3,2,2,1,1,1,1, so you know in advance the value of the neutral
token you'll be getting back.

Play continues back and forth until a player finally uses up all
their market stands and everyone has had an equal number of
turns.

That's pretty much it. The only luck in this game is the customer
draws from the bag, but it's minimal and there's even an option
of having all customers randomly aligned at the side of the
board, so you'll always know what customer will be next.

The Market Stands, Bobby Figure, Scoring Cubes and Customer
Meeples, are all nicely done in wood.
The four quad board unfolds to expose all the alleyways, districts
and squares, where pieces will be placed. It looks pretty busy,
but it's beautiful and it works.

As simple as the game plays, you'll be struck by the great
number of choices you have during your turn. Portobello Market
is a game where the culmination of all your choices is what
decides your fate, as opposed to finding killer moves during a
turn. It's definitely a game where you try and get an edge, once
inch at a time. I suspect it will take many games to begin to get
a sense of what you should be shooting for each turn and
personally, that's what I like about it. Portobello Market can be a
simple game or a complex one, depending on the amount of
thought you put into your moves. In spite of that though, there
seems to be very little down time between turns. Many games
that supposedly support 2-4 players often fall short when played
with 2 players, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I'm really glad I didn't miss this one. Portobello Market
accomplishes something that few games ever do, and that's
creating a simple game, with few rules, that offers an
assortment of tactics that may lead you to victory, once you
figure out how to put them all together.

Arthur Reilly

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